Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data

Mashabatu, MNtshidi, ZaneleDzikiti, SJovanovic, NDube, TTaylor, NJ2023-07-202023-07-202023-08Mashabatu, M., Ntshidi, Z., Dzikiti, S., Jovanovic, N., Dube, T. & Taylor, N. 2023. Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data. Agricultural Water Management, 286. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/128920378-37741873-2283https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2023.108389http://hdl.handle.net/10204/12892Inaccurate crop coefficients are major contributing sources of uncertainty that lead to inefficient use of limited available water resources. Understanding the need to improve water use efficiency in South Africa’s fruit industry, this study evaluated the method of deriving crop coefficients developed by Allen and Pereira (2009) over a variety of irrigated fruit tree crops. Detailed data of transpiration, evapotranspiration and weather variables measured using the heat ratio method, eddy covariance method and automatic weather stations, were collected from a water research funding body established by the South African government. This study adjusted the stomatal sensitivity function (Fr) in the model by replacing the ratio of the leaf resistance (rl) to the standard leaf resistance of a reference crop (100 sm-1) with rl/a where a is a resistance parameter for the specific crop. The resistance parameter was solved accordingly for each fruit type. Respective unique a values were obtained as: macadamia nuts (200 sm-1), citrus (50 s m-1), peaches (20 s m-1) and pecans (20 s m-1). These unique values were used to simulate basal and single crop coefficients that produced satisfactory results when compared to the actual measured values. Overly, no unique standard a value exists for most tree crops although a value close to 20 sm-1 may give reasonable estimates for pome and stone fruit. Crop coefficients derived using locally measured data were standardised and tabulated in a format that facilitates their transferability between sites. However, there is still a need to acquire crop specific information to parameterize a and improve accuracies.FulltextenBasal crop coefficientsEvapotranspirationSingle crop coefficientTranspirationDeriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height dataArticleMashabatu, M., Ntshidi, Z., Dzikiti, S., Jovanovic, N., Dube, T., & Taylor, N. (2023). Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data. Agricultural Water Management, 286, http://hdl.handle.net/10204/12892Mashabatu, M, Zanele Ntshidi, S Dzikiti, N Jovanovic, T Dube, and NJ Taylor "Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data." Agricultural Water Management, 286 (2023) http://hdl.handle.net/10204/12892Mashabatu M, Ntshidi Z, Dzikiti S, Jovanovic N, Dube T, Taylor N. Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data. Agricultural Water Management, 286. 2023; http://hdl.handle.net/10204/12892.TY - Article AU - Mashabatu, M AU - Ntshidi, Zanele AU - Dzikiti, S AU - Jovanovic, N AU - Dube, T AU - Taylor, NJ AB - Inaccurate crop coefficients are major contributing sources of uncertainty that lead to inefficient use of limited available water resources. Understanding the need to improve water use efficiency in South Africa’s fruit industry, this study evaluated the method of deriving crop coefficients developed by Allen and Pereira (2009) over a variety of irrigated fruit tree crops. Detailed data of transpiration, evapotranspiration and weather variables measured using the heat ratio method, eddy covariance method and automatic weather stations, were collected from a water research funding body established by the South African government. This study adjusted the stomatal sensitivity function (Fr) in the model by replacing the ratio of the leaf resistance (rl) to the standard leaf resistance of a reference crop (100 sm-1) with rl/a where a is a resistance parameter for the specific crop. The resistance parameter was solved accordingly for each fruit type. Respective unique a values were obtained as: macadamia nuts (200 sm-1), citrus (50 s m-1), peaches (20 s m-1) and pecans (20 s m-1). These unique values were used to simulate basal and single crop coefficients that produced satisfactory results when compared to the actual measured values. Overly, no unique standard a value exists for most tree crops although a value close to 20 sm-1 may give reasonable estimates for pome and stone fruit. Crop coefficients derived using locally measured data were standardised and tabulated in a format that facilitates their transferability between sites. However, there is still a need to acquire crop specific information to parameterize a and improve accuracies. DA - 2023-08 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR J1 - Agricultural Water Management, 286 KW - Basal crop coefficients KW - Evapotranspiration KW - Single crop coefficient KW - Transpiration LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2023 SM - 0378-3774 SM - 1873-2283 T1 - Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data TI - Deriving crop coefficients for evergreen and deciduous fruit orchards in South Africa using the fraction of vegetation cover and tree height data UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/12892 ER -26846